Ends Meet
by mickeylover303
Summary: It's not Tobi who finds Sasuke. NarutoSasuke.
1. Providence I

**Providence I**

For as long as you can remember, he's always given you those words, two paltry little words littered amongst apologies like eulogies to the times you used to spend together, the times you once allowed yourself to believe you imagined ever happened, but when _that time_ finally comes, when you flinch at the soft touch to your forehead and the sudden appearance of a still familiar gentle smile that has no right to make him look so damn happy, when the sky falls with him over you, when you close your eyes to the rain that doesn't wash anything away, it's in this moment you realise there won't be a _next time_ anymore.

...

It's dark when you're able to see again, take that first conscious breath that makes you remember how to breathe again—that you can breathe again.

Trembling fingers fail to grip the soft bedding beneath you. Arms laden at your sides, they tighten at the sharp pain flaring in your chest, echo with the throbbing mass in your head making it too heavy to lift.

There's too much that hurts to tell what actually doesn't, aches that swathe you like a second skin, and you ground your teeth because it doesn't encompass enough to say everything does.

Dry eyes squeezed shut you can't force open. There's a tickle in your throat, and you try to suppress the urge to heave with your tongue depressed against the roof of your mouth.

Yet the bile still threatens to rise, itches from the back of your throat like the scratchy material wrapped around your torso—binding, constricting—draped taut and chafing against your skin.

You flinch at the touch on your forehead, too cool against your skin too warm, but something holding your arm keeps you from moving far when you try to jerk away from the voice above you.

"Hey, it's me. Don't—it's me, okay."

In comes one breath. Out goes another. Shaky pauses in between grow increasingly short and scattered with sharp movements from your limbs protesting the weight holding you down.

Your chest deflates then tightens when the cool touch disappears, hacks at your body with a harsh fit of coughing forcing phlegm up your throat.

It's painful to breathe in, feels like you're choking on air. Yet the air drawn, as much as you can, as fast as you can, none of it seems to reach your lungs. Less and less with each exhale. Harder to gather with each inhale, snatched from you with each gasp as quickly as your breaths become.

"Calm down—breathe, just breathe. _Breathe_. I need you to breathe for me, all right."

You push away from the voice, both hands flat and pressing against something solid. You swallow to wet your dry mouth, force back the itch in your throat to prevent anything from coming out when eyes you squeeze to keep closed begin to water.

"Would you stop fighting me already," the voice hisses, "I'm just trying to—"

You lurch up at the sudden weight on top of you, lifting your right leg and forcing contact against the weight with your knee.

There's a loud groan. Hands clamp around your wrists and trap your arms to the bedding.

"T-too close," the voice wheezes, "that was too close."

You buck again, reaching for something with fingers clawing at nothing, yet the weight on top of you only shuffles to bear down on your legs, pressing you further into the bedding.

You feel yourself being shaken, and your eyes shoot open, revealing only darkness.

"You got to be kidding me. I just put up money for this room. You can't—" The voice curses. "Quick, put it out—put it out already!"

You squirm, trying to turn from the hand moving to cover your eyes and lash out with an elbow that's pushed back against the bed.

"Didn't you hear what I said? I know you can hear me—I know you know it's me, so stop trying to fight me, Sasuke!"

The grip holding down your arms tightens, but your body goes rigid at the sound of your name.

The weight on top of you shifts, turns into soft rustling that lapses into a quiet disrupted by the voice.

Slowly, the hand moves away from your eyes. Sasuke, you hear again, this time softer, calmer. Again then again it comes, forming a mantra dissolving in the back of your mind.

You struggle to keep open unseeing eyes stretched wide enough to burn. The silhouette looming over you slowly comes into focus, but your eyes begin to close, and the name once foreignly familiar teeters on your lips as you feel yourself drift out of consciousness.

...

It's still dark when you try to find your way out of sleep. The glow from a tiny light offers a glimpse of blond hair, flickers over the face you strain to see through the haze laid thick over your mind.

"Should have known you'd be the type to wake up in the middle of the night like that," comes the voice from before.

The already soft light begins to dim even further, withers behind your eyelids. You raise your knee adjacent to your stomach, pushing with a shaky palm against the bedding to turn on your side.

"Nice to see you again, too."

There's a long pause from the voice, interrupted by the rustle of fabric, then the screech of something scraping across wood.

"Okay, don't talk to me then."

You try to draw back, but your body is sluggish, refusing to let you move far from the voice too loud inching closer and closer.

"I'll just chalk it up to the pain medicine making you cranky—_crankier_—and leave it at that."

Turning on your back, you lay one arm beside you, bent at the elbow and idle on top of the bedding stealing the little heat left in your body.

"At least your fever went—Sasuke?"

You moan at the familiar touch warm on your forehead, a hand you lean into but can't follow when it disappears. A shiver makes you curl beneath the soft material pulled over you, the sound of your name whispered like a hush meant to lull, and you let yourself fall back to sleep.

...

The muscles in your stomach stiffen as you sit up, suck in another harsh breath because the movement too abrupt leaves you faint, hunched over in the exertion it takes to remain upright.

Breathing out, you grit your teeth, bite the inside of your cheek at the dull ache beginning to settle within your chest. Hands in your lap clutch the sheet fallen around your waist stuck to clammy skin. The ache grows heavier, pervading your body like the keen sense of disappointment that you're able to feel anything at all.

Yet you can.

You do.

To wake up on this bed, in this room whose only significant lies only in the fact it's somewhere you weren't before, somewhere Itachi's body isn't lying beside you, the already waning fulfilment you should feel is undermined by a quick glance to your left.

Because then you see, remember that voice you knew without recognising—his voice—and you simply stare at the figure slouched in the chair pulled next to you.

Of all people, the one person you could live without meeting again—it had to be him.

Of all people, Naruto had to find you.

An arm hanging over the back of the chair moves when he begins to stir. He raises his head drooping with his chin close to chest, raises both arms to lengthen his body in a stretch. Eyes yet to unclose, his mouth opens wide with a yawn.

He smacks his lips, bending over and bringing his arms down to rest on top of his knees. Groggy eyes he opens immediately sharpen when they catch your gaze.

"Looks like you're up for real this time," he says, distorting the seemingly innocuous words around a grim sort of smile.

Flexing your jaw, you swallow against your mouth dry and throat sore. You don't trust your voice to speak, so you don't. You watch Naruto, well aware of his eyes roaming over you.

It's a subtle gesture, more subtle than you would have thought someone like him capable of, but the stout display of attentiveness, although quick, borders on unsettling. He studies you, inspecting his own abysmal bandaging skills that aren't so abysmal anymore, over your chest and your right arm, finishing the survey near the back of your neck, where it stays too long.

Another moment and he finally decides to draw back, sitting up with a posture too forced to seem casual.

"Between trying to burn this place down and almost kicking me _down there_," he says, "I wasn't sure what you were going to do when you woke up this morning."

Your fingers clutching the sheet slacken and tighten.

"Not that you remember that, right." He snorts, then smiles again, small but this time a little more reminiscent of his old smiles easier to disregard. "Sleeping, that's what you've been doing, in and out of it for the most part. It wasn't that bad, but then your fever wouldn't stay down—even though I'm not Sakura or anything like that, I know enough to get by, but I almost thought..."

He shifts in the chair, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand. "Anyway, you're better now. At least better enough to ignore me, so..."

Leaning over, almost cautious, he reaches to touch your forehead. You intercept the hand with fingers grabbing his wrist, try to squeeze hard enough in an attempt to break it, but you can only squeeze hard enough to ensure you won't collapse.

The room stills, fills with the sound of your breathing, haggard gasps for air hauled long and slow through the slight gape in your mouth. Your grip is pathetically loose, and the refusal to release the hold sways to the necessity of leverage rather than the desire to actually hurt him.

He doesn't pull away until you gather the energy to let go. His mouth forms into a thin line, tight despite his expression that makes something churn in the pit of your stomach.

Your hand falls back in your lap, but he doesn't say anything, extending an arm behind him for a small plastic cup sitting on the desk.

"Here." He holds towards you the cup half empty. "You really should drink something."

The coated feeling of your tongue is slimy against chapped lips, but you don't move to accept the cup. You look away from it. You look away from him.

"Look, it's just water. You can't tell me you're not thirsty."

You don't deny it, yet as dehydrated as you probably are, more so than even hungry, you know your hands won't be steady enough to take the cup, let alone steady enough to hold it without spilling anything, but Naruto doesn't need to know that. You'll be damned if you let him try to do something as degrading as force-feed you water.

Again, he motions you to take the cup. He frowns when you still don't move, then sighs and turns to place the cup back on the desk. "I'll leave it here for later, all right. Just..."

Two fingers tap in quick succession on his knee, speeding up to a haphazard tempo. His gaze travels back to you, but he remains silent, seemingly content to stare with a newfound sense of patience.

Fatigue compels you to look away first. You lie down on the bed, forcing slow breaths through lungs suddenly parched for air, and you close your eyes, hands gripping the sheets until you manage to fall asleep.

...

The ceiling's sallow in colour, almost a sickly yellow due to age obvious from the rest of the room. Large cracks in the off-white paint appear at random intervals along the intersection of the walls and ceiling. It's a decaying backdrop to the four modest pieces of furniture noticeably dated, maybe even old enough to be considered antiquities, but it doesn't tell you what you want to know, where you are.

Some kind of inn, most likely, although how far away from that place...

Movement from the other side of the room catches your attention. You lick your lips, try to swallow the metallic taste that won't leave your mouth. Without having to move, from your peripheral, you see Naruto standing on his knees reaching for the window above his bed.

"I know it's too cold to open the window," he says, "but natural light's supposed to have the same effect as fresh air. Or at least something close to it."

He pushes back the plain curtains unravelling at the seams, exposing you to the glare of the morning sun. "Plus, sharing a room this small, it doesn't take that much to make it feel stuffy."

He plops himself back on the bed rumpled and unmade, bouncing on it for a few moments. After the squeaking from the springs begins to subside, he says, "How long do you plan on keeping this up?"

Arm beneath the quilt, you tug on the waistband of the pants you don't remember putting on, curl your fingers around the gathered material too much in your grasp.

"Not talking to me, that is."

You keep your eyes fixed on the ceiling, listless.

He tosses a sigh that reaches you from across the room. "That long, huh?"

He's looking away when you turn your head to face him, staring at the worn knapsack you assume is his lying against the wall in the corner of the room. Near it, to the right of a narrow door, is a small desk, on top of it only a paper cup and a forehead protector sitting close to the edge.

You haven't seen any of your belongings since you woke up coherent, but the only thing you need is Kusanagi. Unless Naruto had the foresight to look for it, you'll have to return to that place where Itachi fell as soon as you're well enough to travel.

With a another sigh, Naruto pushes himself off the bed and stands. He walks towards you, pulling at the hem of a white shirt covering loose black sweatpants. The soft pattering of his bare feet onto the hardwood floor grows louder, Naruto closer until he stops at the edge of the bed you're lying on.

He peers down as you look up, squints at you while pushing away the hair falling over his face.

The unstated literal difference in vantage is too blatant to ignore. It doesn't quite make you feel uneasy, nor does it detract from the lack of vulnerability you feel despite being in this position, yet the simple act of having to look up to meet his gaze has you narrowing your eyes nonetheless.

"It's been four days, Sasuke. Four days and you—"

He drops his hand, letting his arm flop against his side. "You can't do this forever. You won't get better if you stay like this, and I can't let that happen. I won't let that happen. I didn't come this far just to let you..."

Slow, exhale and inhale, you take in the scent of the quilt laid up to your neck, the almost pungent smell of mothballs. The taste it leaves in your mouth is unpleasant, nearly as bitter as the taste of dirt turned into mud from blood and sweat lost amidst rain.

"...say something." From a low whisper, his voice begins to rise, words snarled through lips curving upwards at one corner. "Stop being such an asshole and talk to me—say something."

The fingers gripping your pants unfurl, and you watch his body tense as he extends fingers that quickly form a fist.

"_Say_ _something_."

You don't startle when the bed sinks beneath his additional weight, sinking further as he hovers above you, when his arms enclosing your face demand your attention.

"...get the h-hell off me" The fluctuation in your voice agitates your throat, reaffirms a dull throbbing behind your eyes at the fact you don't simply throw Naruto to the floor.

"Damn it, Sasuke, I found you. I finally _found_ you, but then seeing you look at me like that, like none of it matters. Like nothing ever did."

His face lowers close to yours. His breath you unwillingly inhale smothers you, an unwanted warmth that envelops you, but you don't blink. You don't let your gaze waver.

"Was it even worth it?" The sun gleams on his eyes marred by lines of red rimming white surrounding blue. "Throwing it all away for Itachi's death, this is what you gave up everything you had for, but in the end, did it change anything?"

He closes his eyes, keeps them shut despite the wetness from his face that spatters on your cheek.

"Does it make things different now?" Sniffing, he opens his eyes and swallows, but his voice beginning to crack develops into a low growl. "...do you even care anymore?"

The bed recoils from his hands pressing down and pushing against it.

"Do you, Sasuke?!" he shouts, then again, "do you?!" and shoves at the bed twice, three times and again, punctuating the baseless litany of the underlying _I told you so—we told you so _you can't help but hear each time the bed carries you with its momentum, each time the emphasis scrapes at your skin like the sheets under his fingers he bunches in his hand.

Once more, the bed dips before he pushes away. A glance at you makes him wince, makes his eyes grow wide. Slowly, he steps back, wiping his face with the bottom of his palm, muttering something you can't hear, and stopping near the foot of the other bed. Turning away, in and out he breathes, reaching for his hair with the tips of his fingers pressing down hard against his scalp.

"Shitshit—_shit_."

His hand drops to slap against his thigh.

"Sasuke, I..."

He cuts himself off with a scoff mangled by a faint laugh that follows. After a moment, he paces to the corner of the room, where he leans down in front of the knapsack.

"Bandages," he says, "your bandages—too tight, are they..."

He doesn't finish. He doesn't wait for you to answer. Frantic hands searching the small bag find and pull out a roll of gauze coming undone.

"I-I'm going to have to redo your bandages. Soon. Now." Standing up, he turns to face you, tightening his grip around the gauze. "Then we can—you can get cleaned up. I did what I could, but you still might want to, uh..."

He starts to walk towards you but hesitates, edging backwards until the back of his legs hit the other bed. He allows himself to sit, allows his shoulders to sag with a heavy sigh.

"...four days, Sasuke," he whispers, watching you with eyes still gleaming. "Four days."

...

The narrow door by the small desk leads to an equally narrow bathroom. Although it appears traditional, with the kind of steep wooden tub typically found in older inns, it doesn't have a separate bathing area, nor a separate room for the toilet and sink cramped inside. Despite the oddity, however, being attached to the room is a convenience you don't fail to appreciate.

Yet even with a door closing you off to the room, it's hard to feign any semblance of privacy when you know Naruto's on the other side.

You try anyway.

The partial fog collected on the tiny mirror above the sink has already cleared, has been for more than a few minutes. You're clean enough. Too clean, probably. Once inviting, the smell of the soap withered in your hand is suffocating, becomes a stench in the bathroom without a window to open.

Still, you'd prefer to soak in water already cool and almost cold. You'll let Naruto wait. You'll let him sit restless on that chair by the bed, keen for even the slightest hint of noise, treating you as if you're some child liable to drown without constant supervision.

The coarse material of the washcloth you lather again with soap begins to burn your skin red. It scours over white lines of slightly raised scars that have yet to fade, again and again over the impressions left from the bandages Naruto tried to prevent you from removing.

You wouldn't let him take them off.

Couldn't.

But he still sat on that chair, watched you slowly peel away the bandages to reveal skin too pale from limited circulation.

You grit your teeth at your skin now an angry flush.

According to him, it's been four days. Four days since Itachi fell, left you behind with years of grime and caked blood you can't fully wash away that gradually warmed the water surrounding you a muddled pink.

Your left arm lifts to raise your hand. You continue to scrub, pressing down against the base of your neck hard to reach without wincing.

The soap clunks on the floor when your right elbow is scraped by wood. Water spills over, splashes onto the floor like the washcloth in the tub. A single-handed grip on the edge of the tub is the only thing that prevents you from slipping, grows tighter when you hear the call of your name.

You almost lose your balance when the door opens, hushed, unbearably slow, right yourself up by the time Naruto squeezes in the bathroom.

Lack of food and water takes its toll on you. It takes too long to steady your breathing. More than long enough for Naruto to notice.

"Sasuke, you..."

You let go of the tub, let your right arm hang at your side. With your left hand, you grab the washcloth floating in the water, wring it out and drape it over the side of the tub.

He starts to say your name again, cuts himself off and stands there when you raise your head to look at him. One step, he comes forward, cautious yet apparently not wary enough to leave you alone. Another step with a foot heavy against the floor, closer until he's almost within arm's reach.

"Are you..."

The way the corner of his mouth twitches, the sudden tension in his shoulders, you can tell he wants to say something. But he won't.

You don't care where you stand with him anymore, but he's still trying to figure out where he stands with you, and for whatever reason, he's deciding to hold back. It's so disgustingly obvious. Either he's too easy to read, or—no, he's simply too easy to read. He has to be. He's always been. There was never a time you used to know him that well.

You reach for the towel folded on top of the tapered sill on the wall to your left. The few seconds it takes to get up seem excruciatingly long, but you set your jaw. You hide the pale knuckles of reddened fingers beneath a white towel. You don't lose eye contact with Naruto.

He breaks it first. The colour on his cheeks turns his gaze down, trained on the floor and away from your feet.

If he's waiting for you to tell him to leave, you won't. It'd give him the excuse he'd use to stay. Seeing you like this can't be what's bothering him. Not if he's stubborn enough to will aside his own discomfort out of his damnable concern for you.

Or maybe it's nothing more than pride. Maybe it's an effort to appeal to you, still asserting that childish notion he ever could have been your rival.

Either way, it's an abject display of something you neither need nor want.

Taking a shallow breath, he squares his shoulders. When he glances up to look at you, he doesn't turn away.

"If you're done, I'll just..." There's a short pause, and he swallows, lets his eyes wander to your neck. Eventually, they return to your face. "I'll go ahead and empty the water."

...

The pants you woke up in lie tossed in a bag by the corner. The pants you're wearing don't fit. They're too loose without something to hold them up, with the length of the seam too short falling just above your ankles. Somehow, though, they're able to make your already restricted range of motion seem even more stifled.

The clothes that were yours, what was left of them, you don't know where they are. You didn't ask. Naruto probably threw them away.

Your skin dry and wrinkled still feels cool. It prickles from the air in the room only a little cooler, tickles from Naruto's hand that much warmer pressed against your back holding you steady. Gently, using his other hand, he unravels the roll of gauze around your torso. He licks his lips, reaching from beneath your arm a third time with a pull firm but not tight.

You don't move to hinder him. You don't lift your arm to help him.

Across the room, the window above Naruto's bed is still closed. The curtains are pushed to the sides, revealing a foreground of falling snow against reds and oranges from the sun setting behind white hills.

You grunt when you're jerked forward, stopped from falling over and held still by Naruto's grip on your uninjured shoulder. He mumbles a quick apology, more focused on finishing the nearly empty roll in his hand.

Sterile, the smell of gauze begins to overpower the lingering scent of the soap that left you too clean, clogging your nostrils and making your chest constrict. You inhale when Naruto moves away.

Emptied roll in hand, he sits back, slouches in the chair that never seems to deviate from by the bed. He places the roll on one finger and lets it drop in the palm of his other hand. He peers at you without raising his head.

Favouring your left side, you lie down, facing Naruto but not inclined to move in order to face away. You concentrate on trying to keep open eyes on the verge of closing instead.

"So, I..." His mouth twitches. Movement slight, the corner of one side turns up then down. He takes a breath, looks down at the roll he continues to toss from one hand to the other for a few seconds.

He said something about medicine, you remember, either yesterday or the day before. You lick your lips, think about the acrid taste in your mouth from earlier.

"I left Itachi's body," he says, conversationally, but his glance towards you cuts through the attempt to appear casual.

You blink.

Speaking so candidly, it's a suspicious way to make an admission. If anything, it makes you suspect to what he's not saying.

He fidgets in the silence stretched in the wake of his own words. The roll in his hand crumples in his palm he opens and closes again. "In case you were wondering what happened to him."

Except you weren't.

Aren't.

You couldn't care less if crows picked at the remains of that man's body.

At best, the admission is a roundabout confession to not knowing. Although if it's supposed to be a means to gauge your reaction to Itachi's death, by the most menial standards, it's clumsy, even for someone like Naruto. Worse if he made the assumption you'd allow yourself to be that transparent for anyone again.

The failure not to disappoint still clings to you.

He leans forward, arms crossed and propped on top of his legs brushing against the edge of the bed, but the sight of Naruto begins to fade, distorts and blurs until his expression tinged with something you refuse to name finally disappears.

You don't have to wonder about Itachi anymore.

He's already dead.

"...or anything like that."

...

It's late in the afternoon when you wake again. The sun's still glaring through the curtains pulled closed. The window is slightly ajar, but the bed beneath it is dishevelled and empty.

Ignoring the growl from your stomach, you roll from your side onto your back. You hiss at the sharp flare of pain travelling up your right arm, pressing your tongue against the roof of your mouth. Wincing, you shut your eyes. The metallic taste hasn't gone away yet.

Naruto's probably been giving you the medicine in middle of the night, taking advantage of your less than ideal state while you have no choice but to drop your guard.

There's nothing you can do about it now, although even if you could, there's no reason to if it means not admitting to needing the medicine when your body's still considerably sore despite taking it.

The sound of footsteps is faint but has you turning your heads towards the door. You narrow your eyes as the footsteps grow louder then quiet outside the door.

You know it's Naruto. Whether he did it for your sake or not, you sensed him nearby as soon as you woke up. His muffled voice you hear when a key clatters on the floor only confirms it.

He says something again you can't make out. Twice, the lock clicks, followed by the turning of the knob. The door begins to open, nudged with Naruto's foot as he shuffles inside the room. Adjusting a large white paper bag in one arm, he closes the door with his hip, then turns around, using his free hand to lock it.

"Oh." He stops, stares for a while, and grins a little behind the bag covering nearly half of his face. "Good. You're up."

As he walks towards the desk, you turn over on your back.

"Thought you'd be sleeping all day again."

A soft thud and a loud rustling signals Naruto setting down and unpacking the bag.

"I had to pick up some food and some more of your medicine," he says. "You're going to have to eat something eventually, so I tried to get stuff I know you like. The kitchen downstairs, the old lady who owns this place said we can use it. I put food in the refrigerator there, too, but for now I just brought up whatever won't go bad, you know, since that's easier to keep in the room."

There's a series of crackling sounds.

"Like those rice crackers wrapped in seaweed you used to eat all the time. Remember? I got a bunch of those. There's this guy, Hayashi, owns this neat little store right around the corner I went to. We ended up talking for a while, and he gave me a discount because I wanted to buy so much."

The intermittent crackling stops, replaced by his laughter, but it's a soft hum short-lived. "Honestly, I think he was just—well, he said there aren't too many people that come by anymore, so he promised to give me a discount as long as I keep coming back. That's good, right?"

You see him turn around in your peripheral, an indistinct figure suddenly becoming clear when he takes a seat in the chair pulled beside the bed.

"Anyway, what do you want to try first—the rice crackers?" There's a loud pop, then crinkling from the small bag he's holding. "Or do you want something to drink?"

You don't look away from the ceiling, clenching your jaw at your growling stomach this time Naruto hears, too.

"Definitely the rice crackers." He pops one of the crackers into his mouth and begins to chew. Loudly. His brow knits when you don't reach for the open bag he's holding towards you. "This doesn't mean I have to feed you, does it?"

Digging your nails into your palm, you push the bag away.

He sucks his teeth. "You always have to be so—"

"You said," you try to say, the second attempt to speak you've made since you've been here. You inwardly cringe at the nearly unintelligible words that come as a result.

The muscles of your stomach contract as you sit up. Both hands push hard against the bed to keep yourself steady.

"What are you—"

"You said," you try again, but the rasp stuck in your throat is swallowed too late. "You said you left the body."

"That's what you—oh." He shifts in the chair, looks to the ceiling and then back to the bag of rice crackers in his hand. "Yeah, I—you really should eat something, you know. No point in dragging you all the way out here if you're not going to eat anything."

"The body."

"Or drink something, if you're still not up to eat—"

"Where is it?"

"Eat or drink, I don't really care," he says, keeping his voice low through clenched teeth. The bag crackles under the pressure of being wedged in the grip of his fingers. "As long as you do something. You can't not do anything, okay. You just...can't. It's not supposed to work that way."

"Where's—" You breathe through your nose, push away with the back of your hand the hair sticking to the side of your face.

The first two syllables of Itachi's name are the beginnings of a thought you won't finish. You catch yourself before the name becomes a careless slip of the tongue. That body hasn't been Itachi in years. You can't let it become Itachi again.

It's not that you believe he survived.

You were there. You remember falling after him, remember watching the dissolution of years of chasing a single ambition you can't fully claim peak and become shrouded by the body lying unmoving beside you.

But you don't care how or why.

You just want to make sure he's dead.

"Where's the body?"

"It doesn't work that way."

"Where did you leave—"

You jolt when you're slammed into the headboard by the hands seizing your wrists held against the wall.

"And what'd you think you were going to do with Itachi, Sasuke?"

You feel your jaw snap, teeth scraping against the inside of your cheek.

"Drag his body to some cave out in the middle of nowhere? If I didn't come when I did, you could have died out there, o-or somebody else could have found you, and then you'd—"

"Shut up." Twisting your wrists out of his hold, you shove him away, spilling the bag of rice crackers already scattered over the bed onto the floor. "None of this was ever your business. You didn't have a right to bring me—"

"Look, I..." He regains his balance before he stumbles to the floor. After a sigh, he brushes off the crumbs on his shirt. "I left Itachi there, all right," he says, terse, yet it's not enough to completely mask his irritation. "I left him because I had to. But I—when I found you, I was already ahead of Kakashi and the others, so...so if they stopped looking for me, they'll probably take Itachi back to Konoha. Because of the things he said, they'll take care of him."

Your breath hitches. There's a minute sense of apprehension. The possibility of Naruto withholding information you don't know about Itachi evokes the reoccurrence of a doubt still lurking in the back of your mind, but you're not that foolish child you've long since renounced.

"You don't know a damn thing about Itachi. What he did to—"

"Even with all that's going on," he says, voice strained to stay calm, "I really don't know what to believe right now. If there's anything I can believe in anymore. Either way, though, after everything you've done, I think I'm starting to understand it. Why you had to do it. What it means to—"

"What would you know—an orphan like you who never had a family to lose. Don't act like you understand me and what I've been through. You can't understand because you're nothing like me. You're _nothing_ to me."

His mouth he opens just as soon closes. He looks down and scoffs at the floor. "Yeah, I—you're right. I guess I am."

You breathe in, breathe out, lean against the headboard bearing the brunt of your weight.

He grabs a cloak from the bed where he threw it earlier. From the corner of his eye, he spares you another glance. The thin line of his lips stretches taut across his face. "I'll be back."

You don't watch the door open and close behind him.

Your eyes are squeezed too tight. They start to water as you curl and uncurl your fingers around the quilt covering the lower half of your body.

It's darker outside, colder. The window's still slightly ajar, but you can't move. You don't have the energy to leave the bed.

The pain in your side makes you grimace. You almost pierce your lip with your teeth, inhale a breath that takes too long to release. The right side of your upper body is throbbing, almost feels numb, and you squeeze your arm with your left hand.

Hissing, you look for the medicine lying out of reach on top of the desk. You can't find it, don't see anything that looks remotely like it. You wouldn't be able to get it without Naruto anyway, but you don't need him.

You don't need someone pretending to understand you.

He shouldn't even try. Whether you want him to or not, he doesn't. He can't understand. He's not supposed to.

No one is.

...

You don't remember much after Naruto left, although you assume he hasn't been gone long. It's still dark, and the breeze from the window is absent, yet you can't decide if he already came back once before you fell asleep.

There's a click from the other side of the room. A portable lamp on the desk illuminates the silhouette sitting in the chair, blocking the light that hurts your eyes as soon as Naruto moves.

With a groan, you push away the quilt making you too warm off your chest.

"Didn't mean to wake you up. Told you I'd be back. I just—" He hisses. "Jeeze,why is this thing still so hot—I just went to the kitchen because I wanted some noodles."

You place your left hand over your forehead. The thin film on your lips leaves a sharp aftertaste from the medicine you couldn't find last night.

"Unless you wanted something, too."

"...why?"

"Hmm?" He makes a slurping noise and smacks his lips.

You blink to stay awake, wait for him to finish.

"Why what?"

"Why did you..."

Your eyelids feel too heavy to keep open. You let them close, listen to Naruto's voice fade in the dark.

He snorts and slurps more noodles. "I need to start slipping you that stuff more often."

...

You dreamed last night.

You think.

Maybe.

If hallucinations count as dreams.

Yet the images seemed familiar, echo like an outline of strange memories from scenes replayed too many times to be simple figments of your imagination.

There was a time when you would dream too much, you remember, a time you left behind, those nights you'd wake to meet the shadows creeping upon the walls. Although they'd disappear with the arrival of dawn, they'd still lie in wait during the day. They followed you unseen, made themselves known despite your eyes closed, but you could still hear them, _feel_ them watching you.

After dusk, they'd hide behind lights that gradually became more compelling to leave on. The shadows teetered just beneath the floor they made quake, from the cracks and crevices they escaped, and swaddled you like a second skin. Voices quiet during the day grew louder, deafening in the stillness of your room.

A silent mantra of a single word you used to fear, taught yourself to hate.

But that name doesn't mean anything anymore.

"Are you going to eat or what?" Naruto says, scooting the chair closer to the bed. His smile is a little too wide, overbearing, especially when he gestures towards the small bowl he holds towards you.

The sight of food doesn't tempt you. The thought of it upsets your already empty stomach.

"It's just dashi," he says, "with some scallions and mushrooms. The old lady says it's good for you. I told her you haven't been able to keep anything down in a while. You know. Since in your case that's the same thing as being stupid about not eating."

Holding your right hand, he places the bowl in your palm, careful not to jar your shoulder. He reaches for your other hand to place around the side of the bowl.

"It's not bad actually." He leans down to blow away steam rising from the soup that simply rises again. "You should try it. I think you'll like it."

You stare at the dashi, at the plastic spoon floating, slowly whirling in the broth. It's not much. The small bowl isn't even filled halfway, but it's probably all you'll be able to tolerate for now.

"There's tea, too. Lotus root with shiso leaves. To make you feel better. If you want some, that is, but the old lady said it'd help make the food go down easier, too."

With both hands, you hold the warm bowl over the towel covering your legs crossed on the bed.

"You're going to be okay with that, right?" he says. "I know you're right-handed, but..."

You pick up the spoon with your left hand, dip it into the soup and raise it to your mouth.

"Is it good?"

You peer at him from beneath your eyelashes, blink, then immerse the ladle of the spoon back into the bowl.

"I, uh..." He clears his throat once. Twice. "I guess that means yes."

Apart from the physical aspect of hunger, you don't have much of an appetite, but the meagre amount of soup won't take long to finish. You take your time, however, eat with small, unhurried sips comparatively loud against Naruto unusually quiet sitting next to you.

He taps his foot on the floor, looks down then looks back to you, stares at you.

You tighten you grip on the spoon, pressing hard against the bowl your palm clammy that starts to shake.

Removing the bowl from your lap, Naruto frowns and places it on the desk.

You shiver, squeezing the spoon still in your hand.

"You're starting to look hot again." His frown deepens after he places the back of his hand against your forehead. "This is why I'm trying to get you to—"

"Don't." You push his hand away, draw back when he tries to touch you again. "...stop."

"Your fever's coming back."

"Stop it."

"I'm not doing anything,"

"Stop staring at me."

"I'm trying to make sure you're not—"

"Stop it."

"Sasuke, just let me—"

"_Stop it_." You hurl the spoon at him, shut your eyes to the loud clatter of the spoon hitting the wooden floor. "...stop it."

"All right—all right, I'm stopping, okay. I'm stopping. Just..."

Head lowered, you cover your face with your hand, press your back against the wall.

Naruto's still there, you know, still close, still watching. You know he'd be there if you reached for him. You wouldn't have to extend your arm very far, but you don't open your eyes to make sure.

You keep them closed, keep your face covered as you listen to the haggard sounds of your own breathing until you fall asleep.

...

"You're still kind of warm," he says, "but at least it wasn't as bad as it was before. You were kind of out of it yesterday."

Bleary vision reveals the sight of blue eyes above you and far too close to your own. You lean away from the contact, from his hand a cool respite laid against your damp skin.

Naruto stands back.

"Finished with your tea?" Not waiting for an answer, he takes the ceramic mug from your hands, squinting as he tilts it forward to look inside. "Want some more?"

You turn your head to cough into your shoulder, focus your gaze on the bandages around your torso that need to be changed. He doesn't see you flinch.

"Here." Next to the mug he placed on the desk is a smaller plastic cup half full with the water you didn't finish earlier. He picks it up and hands it to you. "Drink some more. You still sound congested."

The cup almost falls out of your left hand, but you down the water before Naruto notices the tremor that passes through your right side. Wet lips you lick still feel chapped when he takes the cup away.

"Want to try eating again?"

You let your head rest against the wall, heave a breath that augments the already growing ache in your chest.

He rakes a hand through his hair, curses under his breath. "Look, you won't get better if you keep trying to make it worse. You have to eat something."

"Where did you—"

"You're still on that?" Frowning, he lets his hand fall to the side and sits in the chair by the bed. "Just because you don't want to eat, all of a sudden you want to talk, is that it?"

You close your eyes, breathe in and breathe out.

Naruto made a point of admitting he left Itachi's body there, presumably where he found you, but he won't confirm where _there_ is. He keeps trying to circumvent the question.

Maybe you're asking the wrong one.

"Why did you bring me here?"

"...what?"

"You heard me."

"Because I..." Leaning back against the chair, Naruto crosses his arms over his chest. He looks away, stares at the window with edges beginning to frost over. "Because I didn't have a choice."

"What choice?"

"I didn't have one. I just knew I had to be the one to find you."

"Why?"

With a sigh, he sits up and bends over. He uncrosses his arms to rest on top of his thighs, hands clasped together.

"Time," he finally says, leaving room for another pause. "I needed more time."

"For what?"

"I already knew it wasn't going to be much." He glances at the window, absently biting his lower lip. "Maybe not enough, but I knew it'd still be something. Something I didn't have before. So I went ahead. Even though Kakashi told me not to, but I wasn't ready for that yet. I didn't want to..."

You grit your teeth. He's still not giving you the answer you want to hear. "Didn't want to what?"

"That's why I had to be the one who found you—don't look at me like that. I needed something to slow them down so I could—"

"So you could _what_?"

"There wasn't enough time—I didn't have time, okay! It was either find you together or leave Itachi's body there for them to find. But I couldn't—I didn't..." He takes a long breath, rubbing his knuckles against the side of his leg. "I didn't want them to find you, too. Not yet. Not if I still could help it. But Kakashi will take care of it. I know he will, so just...just bear with it until it gets better."

Ignoring the sharp pain from your side, you grab Naruto's shirt. "That's why you left the body there?"

"What do you even care? You already killed him. That was your goal, wasn't it?"

Your fingers curl around the soft material gathered in your hand, yanking Naruto closer.

"What else did you expect, Sasuke, huh?"

Lips pursed, you narrow your eyes.

"Huh? Answer me, Sasuke. What else did you think would happen? Itachi's dead. He's not coming back. He's not—"

An arm reaches around you, holds you up when you begin to hunch forward.

You try to pull yourself up but fall. Laboured breathing aggravates the ache in your chest, makes you clutch at Naruto's shirt because you can't shove him away when he tightens his hold and buries his head on your shoulder.

"I'm sorry, Sasuke."

Warm fingers press against your skin, mindful of the bandages unravelling from your arm.

"I'm sorry," he says again, breathes across your neck. "I'm sorry I had to leave Itachi there."

You stare at the frosted window pane above Naruto's bed, blinking at the sudden wetness on your shoulder. You don't even know why he's apologising.

"I'm sorry I didn't have enough time. I'm sorry I didn't know what else to do."

There's nothing to apologise for.

"I'm sorry, Sasuke."

Itachi's still dead.

"...I'm sorry."


	2. Providence II

******Providence I**I

He plops himself on the floor, shudders and huddles closer to the low-seated table between you.

"No wonder it's been so cold in here," he says. "I offered to fix it, but old lady Inoue—I already told you about the old lady who owns this inn, right?"

You make a fist with your right hand, flex your fingers you watch slowly begin to unfurl above the heavy blue blanket outspread from beneath the top of the table Naruto hauled from downstairs. The aches in your body haven't quite settled, but the pain isn't unbearable. It's more tolerable after taking the medicine, a dull throbbing almost numb that hinders long periods of constant motion.

"Right," he says again, stretches the word into three syllables. "Yeah, like I was saying, she said there's a guy who takes care of all the repairs. Her husband used to do it—they built this inn, you know. It was their dream, to have a place where people would want to come and stay. She called it the best memory they made together, but she's a widow now, so..."

He clears his throat. "Anyway, the repair guy is a relative of hers. He's supposed to be coming from the next town over, which I guess isn't going to happen anytime soon since we're kind of snowed in right now. Pretty far out, too."

How far, he doesn't say, maybe wouldn't if you did ask. You won't. Whatever the incentive for bringing you here, on some level he has to realise you have no intention of staying any longer than necessary, but you can't afford to draw attention to the inevitability of you leaving. Not when you aren't even fit to travel on your own.

It's reasonable to assume you're still in Fire Country. You can't be too far from Konoha, yet having actively sought this kind of seclusion begs to question why he would take you to this seemingly remote town in lieu of returning with you to Konoha, which should have been his first priority.

Basic curiosity suggests an ulterior motive, but as to what Naruto thinks he'll accomplish, it's an uncertainty you're not particularly inclined to acknowledge.

You follow his gaze towards the window almost completely doused white, hear his murmured slip of _far enough_ that still reveals too little.

It'll have to do for now.

His mouth quirks at one corner when he turns to face you. He rubs his hands together beneath the thick blanket, hisses and shudders. "I didn't even know there _was_ a next town over, but I don't think I can wait that long. Not that I'm saying I know how to fix a leak in a roof. At least I can still try to do something, though."

He laughs a little. "Maybe I can be like that guy in those comics, you know. Start a business doing odd jobs here and there. What do you think?"

You reach for the ceramic mug on the table top, crossing your legs beneath the blanket. The arrangement is cumbersome, with a table that nearly takes up the narrow width of the room pitting your back against the side of the bed.

His snort breaks the silence. "Yeah, that's what I thought, too."

With a sigh, he scoots closer to the table, to the kerosene heater beneath it. "I have to do something while we're here. Until you get better at least. And then we can...I mean—well, we'll still have to wait until the weather's not so bad. But if the snow doesn't start to let up soon, it looks like we might be here for a while."

In your hands the mug feels cool. The tea you sip bitter and warm soothes the dryness in your throat.

"Good thing we have one of these, though, right," he says, gesturing beneath the blanket with one hand towards the table. "I almost wish it was an electric one, but I think that would seem out of place in this sort of atmosphere."

Slowly, you place the mug still almost full back on the table top.

He watches you, sees the slight twitch of your right arm you weren't careful enough to hide. He opens his mouth, pauses, stares at you with his lips pursed.

You lean against the side of the bed, allow your head to fall back, clutch at the thick blanket with shaky fingers as you close your eyes.

...

You wake up on the floor in same position where you fell asleep between the bed and the table. It's cooler now but not cold. Warm air takes the place of the heat once trapped beneath the blanket.

Beside you, he lies too close, curled on the floor right next to you with his hair almost brushing against the blanket over your knee.

You make sure to keep your distance as you shift towards your left, away from him shifting on top of the blanket even closer to you. The cramped feeling in your thighs begins to lessen when you elongate your legs. It becomes a series of prickles, travelling to your calves, lingers at the bottom of your feet when you stand.

It still takes too long to manoeuvre your weight. You don't tire as easily as you did before, but the effort made to keep yourself steady long enough to walk almost threatens to pull your legs from beneath you.

You've only fallen once, yesterday, while Naruto was downstairs. On the way to the bathroom, your knees smacked against the floor, made a loud clap in the room you weren't sure Naruto hadn't heard.

He didn't say anything when he returned to the room with the heated table in tow, but you were back in the bed by then.

The sound of your name murmured by his voice thick with sleep almost makes you pause. Fists clenched at your sides, you take one step forward. Try to find purchase with your fingers slipping against damp palms.

It's already been a little over a week. The injuries obtained during the fight with Itachi shouldn't affect you like this. Neither should recovering from a fever. Although it's too soon for the muscle atrophy you push yourself to keep at bay to set in, your limbs still feel heavy when the medicine begins to wear off, as you breathe and grit your teeth, place the left foot in front of the right, swallow low gasps of air too much at one time.

There's no reason to feel this way when you've survived much worse.

Yet to be reduced to this kind of state, knowingly dependent upon someone who stole from you the last assertion of a single ambition—you don't want to remember another time when you ever allowed yourself to become so _weak_.

...

"Fixed the leak." He closes the door behind him, spinning the small ring holding three keys around his finger. "Looks like I might be doing some odd jobs after all." He catches the keys in his palm with a clink and stuffs them in the side pocket of the pants hidden beneath his cloak.

You bring the small bowl in your hands to your lips. The amount of miso almost causes the soup to be too salty, but the thin pieces of sweet potato and carrots are tender, and the taste of ginger makes it go down easily enough.

Considering your continuing lack of appetite, it's the most agreeable thing you've been able to stomach so far.

He takes off his cloak he throws on top of the bed, shivers with his arms crossed and hands rubbing his shoulders. "At least it'll be warmer in here now."

"Good thing, too," he says. "Old lady Inoue isn't charging me that much as it is, but I still figured I'd have to come up with something sooner or later. I was going to run out of money eventually. I was kind of hoping I'd have enough until—I guess I didn't plan that far ahead," he says, scratching the back of his neck with his hand.

Across from you, on the other side of the table, he settles on top of the blanket, folding his legs beneath him. "But this works out great. She said she'd recommend me to go around to help with some of the side jobs that still need to be done. Nothing really big, but just a few things here and there. Doing this and that.

"It's almost unexpected. For a place with this kind of weather and to be so cut off, there's a lot of old people living here. Civilians, I mean. It's not so bad, I guess, if they're already used to it, but considering how cold it gets, I wonder...

"When I was talking to Hayashi the other day, he said that most of the younger people moved on years ago. As soon as they could leave a town this small. Some of them still visit, he said, every once in a while. But most of them don't come back. Really, he said it doesn't make a difference after a while, but to be in this kind of isolated place, and staying here knowing people leave without wanting to come back. Being left behind like seems kind of lone—"

You set the bowl on the table top. The spoon clanks against it a little too hard for your liking.

Blinking, he leans over, peers into the bowl then looks to you. On his face, there's a sort of half smile stilted from a frown. "Don't tell me that's all you're going to eat."

You lick your lips. Whenever you do eat, however much it is, he always says it's not enough. The more you eat, the more he complains. He did it yesterday, too, and the day before, every time he feels obligated to sit with you and watch. Eventually, he'll leave the matter alone when he realises you're ignoring him, at least until he tries to push it again, but you're more than well aware of your own limitations. It's not for his sake you need to get better.

He bites his lower lip, still frowning. "You're not going to finish the rest?"

Picking up the cup sitting beside the bowl, you take a sip of water and place the cup back down.

"Sasuke, you..." He scoffs, shaking his head and reaching his arm across the table for the food you didn't finish.

...

Eventually, it stops snowing. Another day passes. One more turns into two and then three. Most of the time goes by in relative silence, despite his attempts to pull you into conversation with even emptier words about the odd jobs he's done around town and the few times he's had tea with Inoue.

"She said she likes having the company of a nice boy like me—you believe that?" he says, smiling around a mouthful of noodles and placing his hand level with his shoulder. "This tiny little old lady who barely comes up to my shoulder. And it's cute because she still sounds really young, and then she has the softest voice—almost softer than Hinata's."

The hand over your knee tightens its grip under the blanket splayed over your lap. You tell him he talks too much, but he just laughs, continues to smile and picks up his bowl to gather more noodles around his chopsticks.

The next day brings you closer still to another week, almost two since you've been here. If Naruto went against orders and ran off to find you like he'd claimed, a search party probably wouldn't be too far behind—Sakura and Kakashi, your mind unwittingly supplies—but if anyone was looking for the two of you, most likely, unless Naruto did cover his tracks that well, however doubtful it seems, you would have been found by now.

Although he hasn't mentioned anything about it since admitting to deliberately leaving behind Itachi's body, you aren't too bothered to ask.

Too quickly, traces of a routine begin to emerge. It threatens to become a dangerous means to pass time while you heal. Routines suggest stability, make people soft and unsuspecting, and it becomes even more dangerous when it's clear Naruto's actively trying to build one with you.

Yet the sun continues to rise and set, and the snow looks like it's on the verge of melting when you realise a routine has already been established.

More often than not, he's gone in the morning before you wake, leaving you to yourself until the afternoon when he returns.

You don't know where he goes, but neither do you particularly care. You do know, however, that he'll come back. It's the kind of person he is. Has always been. It doesn't mean anything more than that.

The most you can do in the meantime is bide your time and focus on preparing to leave. While your current situation is less than ideal, there's leeway in the simple fact that, for once, he doesn't seem hell-bent on bringing you back to Konoha.

In the quiet of the room, you exercise muscles still too easily overworked, well beyond the point when the pain in your side beginning to subside decides to flare up again. You distract yourself from thoughts dwelling too long on the staunch ambiguity of where the aftermath of Itachi's death leaves you.

Today, Naruto returns a little later than usual. It's already dark, but you anticipated his arrival long before he comes through the door. He shuffles inside the room with a white paper bag held in his arm, carrying a large blue container by the handle in his free hand.

"Picked up some more kerosene," he says, turning to his left to open a door revealing a diminutive closet. "This should last us for a while."

He places the blue container inside and holds the paper bag in both arms. Normally, he heads towards the desk to unpack whatever he bought, but he sits next to you instead, maintaining only enough distance to place the bag between you.

"So," he says, shifting on the blanket with both his hands covering the top of bag rolled down, "I was thinking earlier, about when I first found this place, and I remembered this river I passed on the way. It's not that far away or anything like that, and you don't have to if you don't want to, but I thought, maybe, uh, maybe you'd want to do something, since you..."

The rustle of the bag is too loud when he removes his hands he then drops into his lap. He pauses and looks down, for a few seconds rubbing both palms against the material of dark grey pants before he decides to open the bag.

Without looking inside, he grabs the first thing he touches and pulls out a small object packaged in multiple layers of paper. He's quick to unwrap it, throwing the paper aside to hold out a short ivory vase.

It's stout at the bottom, curving outward and then tapering into a narrow mouth chipped in several places around the rim. Decorating the surface is a simple mosaic. Starting at the widest point curls a thin branch growing small flowers and bulbs retaining hints of once bright hues of reds and oranges now heavily faded.

As a whole, the vase is nothing special, nothing you'd give a second glance, yet Naruto tilts his head and grins just a little, obviously proud of the find.

"Doesn't look like much, I know, but I was helping Hayashi clean out his storage, and he had a bunch of stuff he was just going to throw away. When he saw me looking at it, he said I could have it. He didn't even charge me, you know. At first I wanted it because I was kind of hoping it could have passed for an urn, to use for a service or something like that, since I thought—"

"You thought wrong."

"It's not that I'm trying to say what Itachi did was okay—that's the last thing I'm trying to do—but it doesn't change the fact he was still your—"

"Shut up." You curl your fingers into your palm, press down hard enough to feel the indents your nails leave on your skin.

He can't possibly think you'd want to seek any kind of closure for the man responsible for the deaths brought upon your family and the shame brought upon your clan—that you could ever mourn someone like Itachi for the hell he's put you through. In all the time you've known him, you never thought Naruto could be that incredibly _stupid_.

But he must be. For even thinking about something like this, much less suggesting it to you, because somehow, he's still not deterred.

He breathes in and out, the rise and fall of his chest a little too forced, but he places the vase on the table top then reaches for the bag again, carries on as if you said nothing at all.

"I ended up getting this, too," he says, "instead of using the vase to hold incense. I think this'll turn out better."

He takes out a small bronze pot, embellished with autumn grass leaves beginning to tarnish. It's set beside the vase, standing with a slight tilt on three little pointed feet. In front on the pot he lays a small bundle of ten or twelve thin, black sticks held together by a strip of paper.

"It's cloves and cinnamon," he says, when he catches you eying the incense. "I don't know how you feel about those, but it's all I could find."

He sits forward and picks up the bag to dump whatever's left inside.

It's a waste of money and a useless gesture. You don't say any more about it, though. More so than usual, he seems adamant enough to continue with this charade, whether you're agreeable to it or not.

"...there aren't a lot of places here to offer the sort of thing like this anymore, but—"

Toppling onto the blanket are four tea candles, a marginally sized roll of thick blue paper, and a plastic cylindrical container the width of his forearm obscured from within by newspaper.

"About the river, why I brought it up, I was thinking you might want to send something down there—even though it's not summer and all. I mean, if that's the kind of thing you want to do. I couldn't find any paper lanterns or anything, but I can make paper boats.

"I actually used to make them all the time," he says, picking up the rolled paper he begins to unravel and pulling from it a square sheet. He begins to fold it at the corner. "Since they were easier for me to make than the cranes and other stuff everybody else knew how to do. It was too expensive to buy a lot of the good paper, but it's enough to make a few. And then we can light the candles to put inside and send the boats down the river."

The boat he made is placed on the table top, closer towards you, and he grabs two candles. He sets one inside the boat and keeps the other candle in his palm. "Like this, see?"

He chuckles, tossing the candle from his right hand to his left. "The lady who checked me out at the convenience store, she thought—"

There's a slight flush to his face as he looks down. It fades when he gives you a small smile as he looks up, placing the candle next to the paper boat. "Doesn't matter because it's not that important—anyway, these," he says, reaching for the plastic canister, "they don't last long after they're cut, but I found them starting to grow from some of the trees out back, and the old lady said I could have some, so I just—well, I thought they'd be nice."

He removes the flimsy lid then tips the open end of the canister towards his lap, where the newspaper slides out. Carefully, he unwraps the paper to reveal four flowers with translucent petals a gradient of pale yellow and white.

Instantly, you're assaulted by the smell. It's too fragrant, almost sickeningly sweet.

"They're wintersweet," he says. "It's not much considering it being this time of year, but at least it's still something—here."

You look at the flowers but don't move to take the one he picks up and holds towards you.

The last time someone gave you a flower was the last time you remember watching the cherry blossoms with Itachi. It used to be the two of you on those days during the short viewing seasons you spent together, long before you deemed yourself too old to be treated like the child Itachi ceased to be when he passed the Chuunin Exam.

Sometimes, sitting beneath the canopy of the garden, you made the ungainly habit of falling asleep. He was immovable sat against the trunk of the tree, became a solid presence while you slept, but it was a dangerous habit he indulged that you grew too comfortable sharing with him.

He'd wait until late in the afternoon to take you home, wake you with the soft call of your name. Opening your eyes, you'd see him kneeling beside you, allowing you to climb on his back, and you'd always clutch his shirt a little tighter as he lifted you high above the cherry blossoms fallen around you.

"It's said that all cherry blossoms are initially a pure white," he said that day, carrying you while he made the long trek across the compound.

Surprised coloured your face. "All of them. Really?"

"Do you know what makes the cherry blossoms so beautiful?"

He paused underneath a particular tree, where only a handful of flowers remained. As one of them began to fall, he held out his hand to catch it, trapped inside his palm a flower he would later give to you.

You shook your head, muffling a yawn against his shoulder.

With the crooks of his elbows supporting your legs, gently, he adjusted your weight on his back. "It's told that dead bodies are buried beneath the trees, and it's the blood tinting the white that gives the cherry blossoms their beauty."

Your arms pulled closer around his neck. "...is it true?"

"Only if you believe it's true."

"What about you then?" you whispered, glancing at the ground littered with pale, pink petals already beginning to shrivel. "Do you think it's real?"

He didn't answer for a moment, instead continuing on the path leading you home. When he spoke, though, there was a slight rise to the corners of his mouth, and the lines around his eyes crinkled. "The only way it matters is if you believe it to be real."

"I'll believe it's real if you do," you said, already decided to change your mind if Itachi said he didn't believe it, because then was a time when you were a child foolish enough to be so impressionable.

"Whether I believe it or not, the question you should really ask, little brother, is how much do your own beliefs influence what you perceive reality to be?"

"So," Naruto says, still holding the flower towards you, and you almost frown at the sound of his voice overlaying with that of a younger Itachi, "that means you like it, right?"

You don't. For him to go through so much trouble, it's demeaning to pay any kind of respect to a man who should have died far too long ago.

Yet his careless sense of determination lends itself to opportunity. Under the guise of his ridiculous proposal, you'll be able to scout as much as you can of the area surrounding the town without having to raise any suspicion.

The flower for a moment twirls when you catch the short stem between your finger and thumb. Flat petals glossy, almost waxy in appearance droop over your hand, concealing the reddish, maroon centre.

It's pretty. Maybe. If you ever cared for that kind of empty, poetic sentiment.

Closing your eyes, you breathe, face him with your head raised. Only just do you refrain from crushing the flower in your palm. You ignore his hopeful sort of smile, turn your gaze from the way he's looking at you when you tell him to take you to the river, because going there will only be a means to an end.

Nothing more and nothing less.

...

You don't leave tomorrow, but he says he'll take you the following day, right after he says he needs to remove your bandages because they need to be changed.

He offers to do it at first, then continues to insist when you start to undo the bandages yourself.

Slowly, you begin to lean over, reaching for the roll of gauze lying on top of the desk. A firm hand on your left shoulder keeps you sitting on the edge of the bed.

"Let me do this," he says. "It'll put less strain on your side this way."

The hand you push away is replaced with a light hold on your arm.

"Let me do it, Sasuke."

Your condition hasn't noticeably improved. This, you both know, and the grip he tightens around your arm is a stark reminder of where you currently stand.

You shrug off his hold, swallow the sudden dryness in your mouth instead of holding back a grimace when he lays his hand across your right side.

"Does it still hurt?"

You grit your teeth when he removes his hand. "If you're going to do it, then do it."

Frowning, he reaches from behind him to grab the gauze and pulls himself on the chair even closer to the bed.

The bandages are wrapped around you in silence. His hands fumble along your side, clutching and grasping with the pads of his fingers needlessly cautious over the light bruising exposed on your skin.

You stare at the makeshift altar on the desk. He arranged it yesterday, placing a single flower in the vase he set in the middle of the desk and close to the wall. The four tea candles are stacked into two short columns to the right of the vase, behind the three paper boats he made.

To the left of the vase is the bronze pot still emitting smoke from the incense burning inside. The almost nauseating odour of cinnamon and cloves permeates the room, further antagonising the headache that made its reappearance the day before.

You grunt when he finishes, reaching for the shirt he laid on the bed earlier.

He watches while you slip the shirt over your head, pulling it down with your left hand. Mouth slightly ajar, the words it seems he's going to say don't come out, and suddenly, he looks away.

The empty roll in his hand is all but slammed on the desk.

...

It's late in the afternoon when you arrive at the river, almost dusk. He showed you the trail he found behind the inn, took you uphill and closer toward the large mounds still covered in a large expanse of white despite the distinct lack of snow near the river.

You have a good vantage point of the town from here. It's much smaller than his vague depictions led you to believe and far less developed than you imagined. The town is built around a wide dirt road, empty save for the various pieces of junk among scrapped wood scattered along the sides. Not including the comparatively large inn, there can't be more than a dozen buildings or so, yet even from this distance, you can tell most of them are in deplorable shape. They've probably been vacant for more than a few good years.

The bottom of the thick cloak he gave you flutters, and the wind whips across your face, blowing your hair over your eyes. A sharp pain to the left of your chest contends with the headache that still hasn't gone away. You take a breath that fills your nostrils with cold air too quickly.

The dead grass rustles beneath his feet when Naruto steps away from the bank. He stops to stand beside you, almost brushes his shoulder against yours. An occasional glance is thrown your way, but you only pull back the hood of your cloak and continue to stare straight ahead.

Floating ahead of the three flowers he set adrift the river is the lit candle in the paper boat you placed down first. You watch them follow the gentle stream heading west, where the river curves and disappears into a small forest made bleak by the bare branches of trees.

With no body, there's no need for a proper funeral, but notions of what's proper ingrained during childhood have no place for this kind of occasion.

The irony almost astounds you. It's a ghost of a tradition, and the intrinsic simplicity almost mocks the elaborate rituals you remember surrounding the death of your mother's uncle when you were younger.

He died a couple of weeks into March, when the last of the snow had finally melted and you no longer had to wear a coat in order to go outside.

The funeral itself lasted six days, yet your mother ensured that you spent most of that time preoccupied with Itachi, including the first time he took you on the other side of the compound to see the cherry blossoms bloom.

You weren't familiar with your uncle, and his name you can't recall even now, but you do know he was an important figure in your mother's childhood, taking the place of the father who was killed when she was too young to remember. He had no children, and since his only niece was older than his only nephew, the arrangement for his funeral fell to your mother.

You'd been curious about the day-long preparations that seemingly lasted for weeks on end. However, no one would answer your questions, all too ready with a placating pat on the head and pointing you away from matters children didn't need to worry about despite your numerous rebuttals that Itachi was a child, too.

There isn't much you can actually discern from that time, though, not apart from the few glimpses into the preparations you stole without your mother knowing and the more frequent arguments between your parents you were still able to hear behind closed doors.

"It isn't something he needs to be a part of," your mother said the night after your uncle died. She didn't disagree with your father too often, but the sound of their hushed whispers would start to escalate after Itachi was promoted to chuunin.

In some aspects, she was even more resolute than your father. She was strong in a more unassuming manner that threatened to uproot the image of your father standing tall, and sometimes you admired her more than you did Itachi and your father you wanted to be.

The soft face she shared with Itachi became marred by the dark circles beneath her eyes that made her appear older than she really was. As Itachi became more estranged, your mother began to direct more of her attention toward you, but when the veneer of your family already wrought with cracks created jagged lines on the pieces not yet broken, you found yourself still holding on trying to seal the ruptures by putting yourself in Itachi's place.

What you can interpret now, you couldn't have known at the beginning. You were five then, when it started with the death of your mother's uncle, and it would be far too late when you realised how distorted the image you held of your family truly was.

"He isn't so young a child that he should be shielded from the idea of death," your father said to your mother, voice terse but not yet raised. "With Itachi, you didn't—"

"Sasuke's different from Itachi," she said, "because Sasuke's not..."

You didn't care to hear the rest as you continued further down the hallway. You snuck into Itachi's room instead of your own, tried to slip beside him in his bed even though you already knew he was pretending you didn't wake him up.

On the day after her uncle's cremation, your mother agreed to allow you to attend the final ceremony being held by the Naka River, where his ashes would be thrown.

She led the small procession alone, wearing a white kimono made of newly woven silk and adorned with delicate ivory trim. Dark hair reaching past her shoulders laid fallen down her back. Large sleeves billowed behind her like the wings of the butterfly you'd seen Itachi easily crush the week before.

"Remember this, little brother," he'd said the day after returning home from his first mission alone. To you, he held out the butterfly then caught and killed by a deft hand. "Never take for granted the fragile nature of our existence."

You watched him turn over his palm to abandon the remains on the forest floor, but they'd been no sooner blown away by the breeze.

"Otherwise, you'll suffer to live bound by ambitions that can easily be made obsolete by something even as fickle as the wind."

The daunting words didn't register much in your mind then, although for whatever reason they resonated at the ceremony that night. You clutched Itachi's hand, following the procession ahead of you with timorous eyes that made you wary to stray from the fingers curled within your own.

Yet as the crowd slowly began to part, slowly revealed the marvel of white paper lanterns drifting along the river, you let go of Itachi's hand.

You chased after the stars spilled from the sky that suddenly seemed within reach. Itachi's soft calls were ignored as you lost yourself in the sea of white obstructing your view. On the other side of the crowd refusing to part, you tried to be careful, tried not to trip while navigating through dense patches of tall grass interceding the narrow path leading to the wide mouth of the river.

The already heavy fabric of the white kimono that enveloped you became heavier when you stepped into the water that was too cold. Large sleeves falling past your hands became harder to keep above the surface the further you waded into the river. Higher the water rose. Up to your chest, almost above your neck, but you were almost there, almost close enough to touch the paper lanterns that reminded you of the stars.

With a desperate cry, your mother snatched you from the stars that were suddenly out of your reach. Her prayer beads broke away from the string loose around her neck as she fell to her knees into the water with you in her arms.

You shivered and squirmed against her, tried to escape the feel of your wet clothes clinging to your skin. She continued to hold you close, though, squeezing too tightly with the threat of never letting go when you told her you were only trying to get close enough to touch the paper lanterns. The words she murmured into your hair you've long since forgotten, but it was the sight of Itachi that held you still against her chest.

Too clearly, you remember the palpable fear in dark eyes. The ashen quality of his skin was almost matched by the white of your kimono. You watched him breathless with your mouth trembling at the tremor of his hand pushing away the hair stuck to your face, from his lips heard the silent whisper of your name amidst the commotion around you, and in that one moment you were almost afraid to think he would have taken you out of your mother's arms had your father not been standing beside him.

"...Sasuke," you hear, again and once more, but you realise it's not Itachi calling you.

"You feel cold," Naruto says, and you turn your face from the hand resting against your cheek.

Wobbly legs almost cause you to lose your balance, but you manage to stagger from his hand that reaches to steady you. "Don't touch me."

"Really cold," he says with a frown. "Too cold, Sasuke."

There's a strange prickling sensation that almost makes your fingers feel numb, but you don't feel cold. Aside from your headache and the growing pain in your chest, you don't feel much of anything.

Hard, you press the heel of your palm against your temple. You tell yourself to breathe out. Almost forget to breathe in when your eyes begin to burn beneath the waning glare of the sun.

Vaguely, you hear him call your name as the horizon west begins to waver and blur. Trickles of yellow and reds bleed into the whites overlapping in the distance. Gravity shifts your vision down. Your knees hit the ground, start to sting at the snow seeping through your pants and into your skin.

You try to stand but sway trying not to fall. Your hands push against the arm around your waist holding you upright.

"Sasuke, you—"

The arm tightens when you continue to struggle, but you need to leave. You can't stay here. You can't pretend to seek solace you don't—_can't_—want for the death of a man who never existed.

In this place with just the two of you, where there can no longer be such a thing as Itachi because he's no longer out there waiting for you, won't ever be again, and this time when you close your eyes, in the dark all you see is blue.


	3. Blue Dahlia I

**Blue Dahlia I**

You moan at the feel of thick fabric clinging to your skin, the weight uncomfortable and suffocating laid over you.

There's a tingle from the legs tangled within your own that spreads to your fingers cool against heated skin. A hand rubs against your side, emits a warmth that makes you shiver.

Your eyes not fully open meet too familiar blue, see Naruto, and you moan again trying to roll on your other side.

He snorts, but his arm around you doesn't let you turn away. "Yeah, being this close to you doesn't make me feel too hot, either."

Your eyes close. You open them again. A hand reaches to shove at multiple layers of fabric, the quilts too many piled on top of you.

"Oh no—you don't get to do that. Not going through this with you again today." Gritting his teeth, he flings the quilts back over you. "As hot as you think you feel, trust me, you're still kind of cold."

The arm around you loosens, and you push away from him with your palm flat against his shoulder.

"I'm just trying to—" He grunts at your elbow hitting his chest. "I'm trying to keep you warm. Work with me here."

He hisses when your knee brushes against his thigh, tries to hold you still with your legs trapped between his own.

After a moment, you swallow, lie unmoving beside him. Your breath comes out slow, heavy from your chest, and you shudder at his fingers still at your side the source of warmth spreading into your skin. You breathe in, stare. His fingers pause, don't quite move away, and your mouth parts at the sudden hesitance too clear on his face.

"...this is all your fault, you know," he mumbles, breaks away from your gaze to look past you. He pulls the edge of the quilt up to your neck alongside his. "Should have left you in the damn cold."

You feel your body being shifted closer, feel your eyelids begin to droop despite the light from the window too bright illuminating the room. The arm around you squeezes, his fingers pressing too deep into your skin, but the blue already starts to fade away.

...

It's dark in the room, but the sun slowly peeking through the window above you gives you just enough light to see.

You push aside the quilt sitting at your waist, turn your head to him nearly lying on top of you in his bed that shouldn't fit the two of you.

Yet his arm still hasn't moved from around you. Your legs are still caught between his. It still feels warm in too many places where skin's touching skin.

At the very least, he looks like he's sleeping. There's a slight movement from beneath his eyelids, when you notice his nose moving too close almost brushing your cheek, but his breathing's slow. His hold on you is lax.

He moans, continues to move closer still with his bare chest almost flush against yours. Something firm pokes your thigh. His hand flat against your back begins to travel too low and snakes beneath your shirt. He hisses then moans again, slowly starts to rock against you. His breathing picks up, rugged and fast, becomes shallow when the hardness between his legs grows more firm through the material of his pants.

You can't decide how to feel. Considering your proximity, it's not so unexpected, understandable even since you've woken up with an erection before; however, for someone like him making those kinds of noises while rubbing himself against you, disdain doesn't quite cover it.

But the arm around you tenses. The hand too low on your back is carefully pulled away. Erection still hard pressing against your thigh, he stills, then blue eyes shoot open with a sharp gasp.

He stares at you pulled close to him, seems to finally take notice of what he was doing, and the realisation in his eyes burns his entire face red.

"Oh shit, I—"

Throwing himself away from you, he falls backwards from the bed with a loud thump, stripping from you and dragging with him to the floor the multitude of quilts interwoven between his legs that don't cushion his landing.

He clambers to stand, hikes above his waist the elastic band of his pants. Worse yet, the painfully conspicuous attempt to hide his erection simply draws more attention to it.

"Bathroom, I was just—the bathroom..."

The red from his face spreads to his neck, colours his chest and arms and his legs revealed by the bottom hem of loose pants raised higher than his ankles.

Taking two steps back, he falls again with another loud thump. He curses, scrambling to pick himself up, and nearly trips over the quilts laid forgotten on the floor. With a quick glance from over his shoulder, he swallows, face still incredibly red in the brief contact he shares with you, but then he rips his gaze away, rushes to the bathroom and shuts the door behind him.

You sigh and turn on your back, close your eyes and place the back of your arm across your forehead.

Being embarrassed over something so stupid, he overreacted for nothing. Morning erections are natural. It happens to guys. Even you know that much, so he shouldn't have made such a big deal about that kind of thing. Except he did. As to why, though, you're not going to let yourself delve into the possible implications of that thought.

For a few minutes you let yourself drift, not ready to leave the bed, but you don't fall back asleep. The need to relieve yourself begins to build, yet with him still in the bathroom, you're not in the mood to suffer his inevitable awkwardness that would result if you went in there now.

By the time he comes out, you already feel a faint light from the sun hitting your eyelids. You hear the door open, but your gaze unseeing doesn't stray from the ceiling.

The door slowly closes behind him, creaks like his steps hesitant yet heavy that should be much lighter edging closer and louder towards you.

"Sasuke..."

You lower the arm lying across your forehead back to your side.

"What happened just now," he says, "I wasn't—"

"Nothing happened."

"...oh."

There's a disappointment in his voice that irks you, a subtle acknowledgement dredging up the past that doesn't need to be raised. Being so close to each other, involved in that kind of moment, it wasn't the first instance. Not to the same degree, maybe, but you were younger then. Those experiences you've only shared with him don't matter. Neither of you knew what you were doing beyond touches too light to have encouraged any real meaning, and the last thing you want is to uproot the history between you that never should have occurred.

You open your eyes, turn your head to meet him peering at you, kneeled beside you with his arms folded resting on the edge of the bed.

"What are you doing?"

"Your fever came back last night," he murmurs, ignoring you in favour of glancing at the unmade bed on the other side of the room. "Even though you were cold, you kept sweating, so I had to move you to my bed. I haven't had time to change the sheets yet, though."

"Why are you so close?"

"To make sure you're still breathing," he says, a slight flush returning to his cheeks as he squints at you, breath warm tickling your nose. He draws away, absently picks at the sheets near your arm. "What else?"

You turn your head away from him, turn your gaze back towards the ceiling.

"I'm still here, you know," he says. "Trying to ignore me won't make me go away."

You grunt.

"Yeah, you definitely must be feeling better all right. At least last night wasn't as bad as before, but I—" He sighs, and his voice grows lower, softer. "...I shouldn't have even taken you to the river in the first place . Not when it was still cold and you're still sick. I shouldn't have let you go outside like that."

In the quiet that follows, the sheets rustle beneath you as you turn to face him again. "You really think you can let me do anything?"

He looks down, stares at his fist clenching and unclenching around the material in his hands. Releasing the sheets, he raises his head with a crooked smile that distorts the expression on his face. "No. I guess not. You do whatever you want to do, right?"

He's humouring you. You know it. He knows it. Even without yesterday's clear indication, it's easy enough to see you're not in the best state to do anything about it, although that expression he's wearing uncharacteristically shrewd almost tempts you to try. Almost. But you won't. You can't.

Not yet.

"Move."

"Asshole." With a snort, he pushes off the edge of the bed that dips beneath his weight when he stands, watches you while you slowly make your way to the bathroom. " Try to be nice and this is what I get."

...

Forgive me, Itachi said, smiled at you like the brother you thought you once knew, tapped your forehead as if such a hollow gesture could somehow supersede everything he'd done.

It'd only taken those words, though, such hapless little words, and a final plea for forgiveness in that one moment was enough to chip away at years of resolve that suddenly seemed so feeble, brought to the surface a surviving doubt clinging to you with a childish persistence despite the hatred for him you drove yourself to bear.

Two weeks ago, that man your brother had become died. Whether by your hand or not, he's dead. It's a new constant in your mind that hasn't changed, won't change the further time displaces you from that day, yet there's still an irrational, almost consuming need to curb even the smallest notion contending with the fact he's no longer alive.

You can't help but question the circumstances surrounding his death. There's still too much you don't understand, too much he never did and never will reveal forever veiled by a gentle smile always meant to both appease and defer. Even as an obstacle to overcome, he was true to his nature, kept you behind him in his shadow with a reach stretched far too long, and it's by that simple reasoning alone, you know your misgivings aren't completely unfounded.

He missed too many opportunities to kill you, probably would have if he hadn't wasted time and chakra to expel Orochimaru from your body. You're still as reluctant to admit it as you were then, but, however seemingly slight you wanted to think at the time, he'd held the upper hand.

Except now you can't be certain he actually had been trying to kill you, if he ever had any intention of killing you, if it was yet another display of his discerning lack of interest toward you, and the futile sort of nagging awareness from retrospect makes you wonder if his death wasn't the final outcome of that day.

Released from one seal only to be reminded it was Itachi's grasp you'd needed to escape, you're still chasing remnants of a fragmented reality.

Yet it's all you know. It's the closest semblance to any kind of truth. You can piece together enough through what your eyes have shown you, despite what little he told you, too many things you can't let go you still believe, so much he always chose not to say, but somehow, somehow he apparently saw fit to reveal just that much more to Naruto—Naruto—it was more important for him to speak to Naruto. Whatever Itachi had said that managed to alter Naruto's perception of him, whatever had given someone as obstinate as Naruto even the slightest doubt, it was more important to Itachi that you didn't know.

Not his brother.

Never you.

But Naruto.

...

You blink at the wetness beneath your left eye. It's slight, barely a trickle along your lower eyelid that trails and stops right above your cheek, but for a moment, your vision dims. The sight of Naruto's back in front of the closet begins to blur. An itching sensation causes your eye to water, begins to burn, and you raise your hand to cover your eye you hold closed with the heel of your palm.

It passes quickly enough when you redirect your chakra from your eyes, however, and the small flicker easily masked doesn't catch his attention.

"I know I put it here somewhere," he mutters, reaching for the worn knapsack he pulls from the shelf.

You wipe at the wetness below your eye, lower your arm and see a thin smudge of blood on your palm when you look down at your hand. It's a negligible amount, though, nothing that should cause too much concern, but yesterday was already a setback you didn't need.

On the bed below the window, leaned against the wall, you watch him drop the knapsack on the desk, busy your fingers with the quilt you gather in your hand. He takes out a tiny translucent vial and turns to you with a broad grin. Pulling out the chair from beneath the desk, he drags it next to the bed, sits in the chair facing you.

"I've never seen anything like these before, but Hayashi said they worked better than the pills," he says, shaking the vial up and down. "Which they do. Faster, too. And it was easier to get you to take it like this when you were out of it."

He unscrews the small white cap from the vial. Without turning around, he reaches behind him and sits the cap on the desk. "I think it's kind of neat. Having single doses in little bottles like this. When I asked Hayashi how it worked, he said something about causing some kind of reaction when you shake it, but I don't remember exactly."

He shrugs, offering you the opened vial. "As long as it does what it's supposed to do—here."

After a few seconds, when you don't accept the vial, he frowns. "Hey, I bought this for you. Not for me. The least you could do is appreciate it," he says. "I know your side still hurts. You were walking kind of funny when you came out of the bathroom earlier. Leaning your weight on your leg like that. I saw you."

The material of the sheets gathered in your hand, you extend your fingers then make a fist, knuckles pushing into the bed.

"If this is about how tired the medicine makes you," he says, "well, you probably need more sleep anyway. And it's not like you need to go anywhere right now. You already got sick again last night, and you don't need to get sicker, so take it, Sasuke."

You stare at the wall behind him.

"Look." He motions to the vial in his hand, pushes it towards you again. "I'm going to make you take it even if it means I have to shove it down your throat."

Teeth clenched, his lips curl into a scowl, but you still don't move to take the vial.

He bristles and leans over the bed closer to you. "Damn it, Sasuke, why do you have to act like this—why can't you just take the medicine? If it helps make you feel better, what's so hard about choosing something like that when you need it? Stop being so stubborn and—you know what? You don't think you need to take it—fine."

The corner of his mouth quirks, just the tiniest bit. "If you won't take it, I will," he says, tossing his head back. He empties the vial into his mouth but doesn't swallow the medicine, turns to you with puffed cheeks and lets the vial fall to bed where it rolls off onto the floor.

One hand grabs your left shoulder, holds you still while the palm of his right hand curves around the back of your head to bring you forward.

Your sound of surprise is muffled by the lips pressed hard against yours. His fingers grip your shoulder, his hand tilting your head towards him when you feel the ridges of his tongue brushing the roof of your mouth, but then he lets go, draws back when you finally remember he's not supposed to do that anymore.

"You just..."

You push yourself against the wall, away from him, unconsciously swallowing the medicine he left in your mouth. It's too late to spit it out, and you're too taken back to do much else. It's disgustingly warm, mingled with his saliva not enough to overpower the unpleasant, metallic taste from the sticky residue coating your lips.

Too fast, your chest rises and falls. You breathe in. Breathe out.

You wipe your mouth with the back of your hand, try to wipe away the stupid familiarity of his mouth pressing against yours that you don't want to acknowledge already happened too many times before.

"...I told you I'd make you take the medicine, didn't I?" he says, unapologetic, gaze scrutinising fixed on you. As predictable as he tends to be, there's no trace of his embarrassment from earlier, nothing from the blushing Naruto who woke up next to you.

Your fingers taking hold of the sheets tighten into a fist.

Casual, his thumb wipes at the corner of his mouth slightly parted. "Even if I have to shove it down your throat."

...

The smell of cinnamon and cloves from the incense already burned is faint but still there, alongside the makeshift altar that still hasn't been removed from the desk. Close to the wall and near the edge of the desk lie two crumpled pieces of blue paper. Two tea candles stacked on top of one another sit beside the failed attempt at paper boats, in front of the bronze pot, sat next to the vase holding a single flower with wilted petals pendent over the rim.

Placing your chopsticks on the table top, you shield your face from the glare coming through the window, a haze of purples and reds that doesn't block out the clash of blond from Naruto sitting across from you.

He reaches for his hair tousled on one side. The hand through his strands further ruffles his hair, creates a mess of too many ends sticking up in various angles.

It feels like you haven't slept in days. Since returning from the river, you haven't done much of anything. That medicine makes you drowsy, more so than it probably should, but you took it again anyway, yesterday and the day before, if only to avoid a repeat performance of him trying to force the medicine in your mouth.

Adverse side effects aren't solely to blame for the bout of lethargy slowly beginning to wear off, although you still feel a little dazed, caught in a stupor hedged by too many thoughts of them.

When you're awake, you think too much about Itachi. You think about Naruto. Think about the ache in your chest, despite the medicine, that still hasn't gone away. Yet when you're asleep, it's only to dream of all the _maybes_ and what-ifs" and Itachi's smile displaced by a nameless grin you're still trying to make yourself forget.

"So," he says, pulling on the lobe of his left ear. The separated chopsticks in his other hand tap twice then still on the table top he drops them on. He glances at the bowl in front of you, frowns when he sees it more than half full with the food you barely touched. "Don't tell me that's all you're going to eat for breakfast."

You glance at his empty bowl across from yours.

He pushes his palms flat against the edge of the table, tight-lipped and seemingly hard-pressed for a reply you don't give. Head lowered, his eyes close, and his arms slowly relax with a sigh. He brings a hand to his forehead, fingers rubbing into the lines made by the creases in his skin.

"You can't tell me you're not hungry," he says, dropping his arm and raising his head towards you. "You've been sleeping for two days. There's no way you're not hungry."

Without breaking his gaze, you reach for the mug of tea beside your bowl, take a sip of the bitter liquid a cool tingle down the back of your throat.

"Don't do this again."

"Do what?"

He narrows his eyes. "You didn't eat anything."

During the two hours it took you to eat, the strips of cured fish had become dry. The leftover brine from the pickled vegetables had made soggy rice that was cold and on the verge of becoming stale, but you weren't concerned about the taste.

"I ate enough."

"That better be another fever talking because you're not going to get any better this way. You're going to get sick again like that."

You bring the mug to your mouth and drink the rest of the tea. "I ate enough."

"Yeah, I heard you the first time, but I'm still telling you that you should eat more." He grits his teeth, balls his hand into a fist he digs into the material of his pants over his knee. "Really."

Holding the mug with both hands, you place it on the table top.

You know he's right. There's no way of getting around that, and it's the only reason you don't outwardly disagree. Even though you aren't hungry, if you were in a more sensible mood, you would eat more. But you're not. Too far from sensible, it's for the sake of your own careless pride that you refuse to try, but here, sitting across from him in this room, pride may be the only thing you have left.

"Sasuke, you—"

Suddenly, he deflates with another sigh, stretched long and deep from within his chest. He drops his head over his lap, looks back up to reach for his empty bowl. After dumping his chopsticks inside, he picks up your mug. The bowl of food in front of you, though, he leaves there, and he stands, slowly, looking away from you, then makes his way towards the door to take the dishes downstairs.

...

"You want me to—the hell, Sasuke? What kind of—"

"You heard me."

"I'm not—"

"Hit me."

It doesn't take much to provoke him. He's always been quick to rile, easy to taunt over the most stupid and inconsequential things, but that kind of Naruto, an angry Naruto, you recognise him, know how to respond to the tangible image of him you took when you left Konoha behind. This Naruto, however, comparatively more restrained, teeming with a frustration so blatantly obvious he's still trying to suppress, this kind of Naruto is harder to goad.

"Stop saying that," he hisses, glares and retracts the hand that almost makes a reach for you. "I'm not—" Pinching the bridge of his nose, he tilts his head back, takes a series of short breaths. "I'm not going to hit you. I don't want to hit you."

"You want to hit me."

"Well, I'm glad you're so happy it's that obvious how much you've been really pissing me off lately, all right, but I'm not going to hit you, so don't tell me to do something like that to you because I'm not." He forces air through his nose, drops his arm to his side and lowers his head. "I won't."

The heel of your palm pushes against the edge of the table, nails sinking into your skin. "Why not?"

"Because it's—it's different now. I can't..." He looks away, swallows and stares at the floor. "You still need to get better, and I...I don't want to hurt you, Sasuke. I don't want to—"

"You never let that stop you."

"I'm not going to hurt you," he says, then again. Jaw tight, there's a resolute set to his eyes, like he's actually afraid of hurting you, firm in the belief that he even could, and it's you he thinks he needs to convince.

Except you're the one who spared him. It was on a flimsy whim you didn't kill him that day, your whim the only reason he's still alive. The last thing he could ever do is hurt you. Even in your current state, he can't, and you won't acknowledge any kind of useless sympathy from him. It doesn't mean anything in the end, especially not from someone who always has been and always will be beneath you, and you refuse to let him look at you with that kind of pitiful gaze.

"Hit me, Naruto."

He shuts his eyes. "...stop it. I can't—"

"Hit me."

"Stop it."

"It never made a difference before." Your mouth begins the familiar onset of a snarl fallen to your ears. "So what are you waiting for now? If you're going to hit me—hit me!"

You ignore the pain flaring in your right arm, raise your fist aimed towards his face.

He anticipates the punch, turns his head to evade a blow that probably would have snapped his neck despite the lack of strength behind it, but your knuckles scraping his chin prove he still isn't fast enough, prove he still isn't strong enough. Because he wasted so much time chasing after you, in the time you've been apart, no matter what he does trying to catch up to you, he'll never be enough.

His eyes flash.

"You want me to hit you that bad!" Grabbing the front of your shirt, he hauls you up then throws you back down. "You want me to knock you out!"

Hard, your back hits the floor. The hand on your right shoulder holds you down, his fingers through your shirt covering bandages digging into your skin, and the pressure spurs from you an involuntarily wince.

Vaguely, you wonder if it'll bruise, if he's squeezing hard enough to leave marks on your skin unlike the ones Itachi already left you can't see that won't eventually go away.

But his grip on you becomes slack. The pressure from his hand recedes. He blinks, twice and again, chest heaving. Swallowing, he watches you with wide eyes taking on a slight sheen when his shoulders start to shake.

"I don't want to hurt you," he whispers. "I don't. So stop trying to make me, okay." His voice croaks and he sniffs, tries to appeal to you with such a stupid smile. "Let's just...let's just—"

You scoff, eyes narrowed and peered at him above you. "...you're still so pathetic."

A growl beneath his breath, his left hand lands flat against your chest, right fist drawn back and his elbow geared above his head.

The air to the left of your face shifts. The inside of his fist grazes your cheek, but his arm stills midair, right before he hits the floor.

Eyes hooded, slowly, he lets his hand fall to the floor, unclenches his fist sitting beside your face.

"...of course I want to hit you," he says, chuckles in a tone low, too dark. "But that doesn't mean I have to like it. Because that's not fair when you pull off stuff like that, when you say those kinds of things. And then knowing you're trying to make me hit you, that you want me to be angry enough to hurt you..."

He lifts his head, stares down at you with eyes moving towards your face close and closer. "That's what makes me mad. That's what really makes me want to hit you, Sasuke. Because that's what still makes me want to—"

The impact of his lips touching yours makes you still beneath him, stops the hand reaching to push him away even though you're not kissing back.

It's not the consequence of his mouth accidentally being pressed against yours. It's not an excuse to shove medicine down your throat. But it's not a tentative kiss, either. Almost desperate, the way his fingers curl around your shoulder, the way he presses himself against you, the kiss is deliberate and demanding, too reminiscent of the kinds of kisses you already shared with him before.

You didn't think much of it, all those times he kissed you and you kissed him. Then, before you left a village that could never offer what you needed, you were too young to realise what you were doing, resolved to make up your own rules in a world seemingly pitted against you, because at that age almost anything was better than feeling alone.

The first time, he tripped and fell into your arms, raised his head and gripped your shoulders, squeezed his eyes tight, then he was kissing you. It was awkward and forced, despite how short, but when he broke away, something inside you snapped.

Instead of bothering to demand why he kissed you, you punched him in the stomach. Punched him in the face when he cried about not really meaning to do it, how you're the one who stole the kiss he was saving for Sakura since he'd never kissed anyone before, but mostly that it only happened because you were just _t__here_, and somehow the vehement dissent of something he'd initiated made you angrier than the kiss itself.

You left him with a bloody nose, left him writhing on the forest floor, and walked away from that one lapse of judgement with the promise to never again fall prey to something as meaningless as a kiss when you couldn't afford to lose sight of yourself.

Yet you did.

It didn't take much, not even a measly attempt at an apology he didn't give, because Naruto, self-righteous as he was even then, didn't do those with you.

He came to your house the next day. Nose bandaged, he stood outside your door uninvited, suddenly shy, and simply asked if you'd let him kiss you again.

Behind you, your house was cold, the draft from inside escaped and a chill prickling the back of your neck. In front of you, Naruto stayed, two fingers rubbing the sleeve of his already rumpled jacket and the light from the sun beginning to fade behind him.

Your lack of response he took as an invitation, yet with all the reasons not to say yes, you still didn't find yourself saying no.

A hesitant step forward became a hurried two. You breathed, too soft, too fast, remembered the fleeting warmth of him being so close from the day before. His hand reached for your face. His fingers grabbed your hair. His mouth was a tight line mashed against yours. He was touching you again, kissing you again, and you didn't do anything to stop it.

Still clumsy and unsure, this time wasn't different from the first, and he murmured about not knowing what he was supposed to be doing, teeth bumping against yours with his tongue inside your mouth, but you kissed back just as inept without stopping to think about the fact you didn't know what you were doing, either.

The kiss at your house became a secret anticipation between you. While no one was watching, whenever you worked up the nerve, you'd share light kisses alongside touches here and there that still felt like too many, left red-faced from the novelty despite the underlying uncertainty, and too swept up in the rush of having that kind of closeness again, even if it was in that way with someone like him.

It didn't happen often, though. No more than one or two kisses in each of those short moments seemingly housed forever within a day, but sometimes, when you were together alone, you'd lie on the ground beside him with his leg thrown carelessly between yours, and he'd look at you in that one moment as if he knew you, this stranger who could suddenly understand everything about you he wasn't allowed to see.

Even now as he draws back, he looks at you in that same way, so close and familiar despite the years you've spent apart, as if in this room the only distance between you is the inside of his knee nearly brushing against your side that closes when you pull him back down.

But you pulled on his hair then, scowled because you refused to let yourself believe there could be anything like that between you, and he tackled you with an angry cry that led to you tumbling with him on top of the grass.

Every so often, in the aftermath of those kinds of fights, you'd show up to training sessions without changing beforehand, hair ruffled and clothes in obvious disarray stained a green nearly as dark as the overt red of your lips. It didn't go wholly unnoticed.

There were curious looks from Kakashi a few times. From over his book, he'd glance between the two of you the same way Sakura did with silent questions she'd almost ask you pretended not to hear.

But Naruto was the same clueless idiot he never stopped being. Oblivious, he'd derail the unsaid implications with trite proclamations of one day being Hokage, of one day becoming stronger in order to beat you, and he'd give Sakura one of those incredibly stupid grins with his thumb pointed up and his back facing you.

You didn't care. Despite the same single-minded attention directed towards her that he didn't stop giving you, it was pointless to indulge in those kinds of moments together alone filled with his soft smiles and warm laughs that somehow still made you feel cold, as your hands would grip his jacket, holding on to the smallest tingle that caused you to shudder before it disappeared when you forced yourself to pull away.

It wasn't going to last. You weren't expecting it to, but you long ago decided you were going to leave Naruto before he had the chance to leave you, too, and during those times alone at night when you didn't feel consumed by thoughts of Itachi, you buried away thoughts of Naruto thinking of Sakura the way she thought of you, spurning the growing sense of constant familiarity between you because you already knew Naruto wouldn't be enough.

Kisses once reserved became messy and sloppy, grew into short-lived competitions that lasted uncomfortably long even though you continued to drag him closer with hands that fumbled in places they probably shouldn't have wandered. When he'd complain you weren't doing it right, you'd argue back he knew even less than you, ignore the fact you should have been thinking about ways to kill Itachi instead of Naruto's overbearing kisses that threatened not to let you go.

But you continued to kiss him. Through closed eyes shut away from images of pale pinks and pretty greens, you pushed him down, silenced his whine of you being too rough even though he kissed you just as hard, if not harder with hands unrelenting that grabbed too much, needless in the attempt to touch you in as many places at once and gripping your clothes like water seeping through his fingers.

It was an impetuous cycle of clashing mouths held at bay by diffident hands and murmurs of all the reasons _why we shouldn't be doing this_ you'd take turns saying riddled amongst the soft-spoken dares to _try this and that_ and the unspoken possibility of one day moving on to _those kinds of things_ neither of you would say because you were too afraid of what it could mean.

You don't miss any of it, aren't sure why you can remember so vividly all of it in this one instance when none of it should matter anymore.

Yet when Naruto kisses you again, takes your lower lip between his mouth, lifts you against him with a hand beneath your back, when your fingers clutch his shirt to hold him closer, this time you let yourself forget Itachi for a few seconds, just a little bit more, because while Itachi's no longer out there, Naruto's still here, and right now, you can't bring yourself to admit you don't know where else to go.


End file.
